Hi, I did just that, not for tube life but because I live off the grid and need every watt I can make. I used an IR sensor from Parallax and interfaced it to an MCU. Nice thing for me is the clock is MCU driven, so all I had to do is add a little code. It's nice to do it with a MCU because you can decide how much movement for how long makes the tubes turn on (so the cat doesn;t turn it on) and how long it stays on until it goes back to sleep. Do you play with PICS/AVR etc?
Jonathan The only problem now with the clock is that the tubes are very expensive and I want to preserve their longevity. I wonder if anyone can help me interface either an IR remote control to switch the HV to the display on and off to permit continued time keeping with the display off. This would increase tube life since I am never home from 7AM to 7 PM and can turn off the display during the day. Alternatively, an IR/Heat sensing PIR motion detector could, via a small relay, turn the display off and on with movement in the room. Perhaps this would be a more sophisticated solution. Looking at the attached schematic it appears that the switch could be placed between the step up transformer HV rail either before or after the Neon indicators. If placed after the indicators the neons would stay lit indicating the clock was still running albeit in display off mode. Thanks for any help or providing another resource to help me solve this issue. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
